but amazing to most readers. Yet they are the A B C of American diplomatic history. I claim no historical erudition whatever. This book adds not a syllable to the literature of the subject, and it is not intended to.
It is hoped that perhaps a narrative, told rather in the language of the man on the street than in the dignified diction of the historian, and setting forth the adventurous and dramatic episodes in the lives of our envoys, the plots they have discovered, the Empires they have defied, the kingdoms they have acquired, may help to create some interest in this most vital matter. It is hoped that it may, for instance, bring some appreciation of the mutual interdependence between Great Britain and America. If the casual reader was aware that under the guiding hand of our Revolutionary heroes we had three times before joined forces with the Navy of Great Britain to face the predatory forces of despotism, and had been defended by that Navy from that day to this, he would be better prepared to debate "the freedom of the seas."
While this book does not pretend to give even a cursory review of American diplomacy, I hope that, having taken this much of a glimpse into our world situation as it has developed, the reader may acquire an appetite for the real facts in the case, for future reference at the primaries, and elsewhere.
R. W. P.
- Pinehurst, N. C.
- Feb. 8, 1918.
